Tracie Harrison
Course: Meteorology 1010
Instructor: George Ramjoue
Date: August 3, 2014
STORM PREDICTION
Aug 3, 2014 1630 UTC Day 1 Convective Outlook
Updated: Sun Aug 3 16:41:57 UTC 2014
A Slight Risk of Severe Thunderstorms is Forecast Today and/or Tonight:
Scattered thunderstorms are expected to form this afternoon from Upper Michigan and northern Wisconsin southwestward to eastern Nebraska. Scattered strong to possibly severe thunderstorms also should form over parts of the southwestern United States and the northern plains. Gusty winds and hail may accompany some of the storms.
The storm prediction center map show a 15% of hail formation upper middle northern edge of Montana forming on August 3rd. Hail formation accrue in cumulonimbus cloud formations as super cooled water droplets are moved up and down in the cloud formation by up and down drafts. As the supercool droplet moves it builds in size by colliding with other droplets until it is too heavy to stay in the cloud formation and is pulled by gravity down to earth. Hail size can range in size from one to five centimeters on average; however records have been set in the United States up to 8 inches. Hail storms can cause millions of dollars of damage yearly both agriculture and insurance industries. (LUT)
The current low front sitting over Nebraska on August 3 at 16:19Z can over take the slower moving high as the low front moves to the east to southeast the area of the trough will experience a decrease in in pressure along with a raise in humidity leading to the slight risk of severe thunderstorms predicted by the SPW.
Radar shows higher cloud formation development with the whiter color contrast. As humidity raises chances of cumulonimbus cloud formation will increases. Cumulonimbus clouds are masses that can grow into vertical towers of heavy precipitation and possible severe thunderstorms formations.
Source: THE ATMOSPHERE; 12 Edition, By Fredrick Lutgens & Edwards Tarbuck Publisher Pearson
REFLECTION:
I believe that new geospatial technology is like everything else in this world, full of pros and cons. It is a very touchy subject. I recently viewed my home on Google Earth, right there in my back yard is photo of my dog. Now my dog is not an outside dog so the chance that at that moment a photo was taken with her in the yard is comical. Yet it got me to think, I like to be outside reading or gardening, if it was me that was photography at the moment I would have felt somewhat violated. After all I never had used Google Earth; I didn’t sign any consent to be photography should that occur.
We currently have nothing in place to protect any of our rights and like Google Earth it may just be accepted. As found in an article from Duke addressing privacy, pushing the boundaries by Google Earth, quoted “Google Earth is just one player in a large game of the democratization of information about individuals. To prohibit this information revolution would greatly inhibit innovation. Therefore, while I do admit there is some intrusion upon privacy at the hand of Google Earth, I do not find it justifiable to do anything about it.” (Source: http://sites.duke.edu/tlge_cs130/privacy/)
The boundaries are not well established in the use of aerial viewpoints and new private owned drone technology. It is a worrisome situation and is not clear on what is legal or not legal, but to have the Supreme Court ruled in regard to law enforcement restrictions and miss stronger civilian’s restrictions, just tells me the technology is so new we don’t know what to do with it. (Source: http://www.scotusblog.com/2012/08/reviewing-the-fourth-amendment-cases-of-ot2011/
